Australasia and Oceania
Two geographical terms; Australasia is applied somewhat loosely to
the islands of the South Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand,
and their adjacent islands, while Oceania is a general or collective
name for the groups of islands in the southern and central Pacific
Ocean, comprising all those intervening between the southeastern
shores of Asia and the western shores of America. The 10,000 or
more Pacific Islands offer a great diversity of environments,
from almost barren, waterless coral atolls to vast, continental
islands.
Area:
8,500,000 sq km/3,300,000 sq mi (land area)
Largest Cities:
(population over 500,000) Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide,
Auckland
Features:
The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench -11,034 m/-36,201 ft is the
greatest known depth of sea in the world; Ayers Rock in Northern
Territory, Australia, is the world's largest monolith; the Great
Barrier Reef is the longest coral reef in the world; Mount Kosciusko
2,229 m/ 7,316 ft in New South Wales is the highest peak in Australia;
Aoraki 3,764 m/12,349 ft is the highest peak in New Zealand
Physical:
Oceania can be broadly divided into groups of volcanic and coral islands
on the basis of the ethnic origins of their inhabitants: Micronesia
(Guam, Kiribati, Mariana, Marshall, Caroline Islands), Melanesia
(Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Solomon Islands),
and Polynesia (Tonga, Samoa, Line Islands, Tuvalu, French Polynesia,
Pitcairn); the highest point is Mount Wilhelm, Papua New Guinea
4,509 m/14,793 ft; the lowest point is Lake Eyre, South Australia
-16 m/-52 ft; the longest river is the Murray in southeast Australia
2,590 km/1,609 mi; Australia is the largest island in the world.
Most of the small islands are coral atolls, though some are of
volcanic origin.
Industries:
With a small home market, the region has a manufacturing sector dedicated
to servicing domestic requirements and a large export-oriented
sector, 70% of which is based on exports of primary agricultural
or mineral products. Australia is a major producer of bauxite,
nickel, silver, cobalt, gold, iron ore, diamonds, lead, and uranium;
New Caledonia is a source of cobalt, chromite, and nickel; Papua
New Guinea produces gold and copper. Agricultural products include
coconuts, copra, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, phosphates (Nauru),
rubber (Papua New Guinea), 40% of the world's wool (Australia,
New Zealand); New Zealand and Australia are, respectively, the
world's second and third largest producers of mutton and lamb;
fishing and tourism are also major industries
Population:
26 million, rising to 30 million by the year 2000; annual growth rate
from 1980 to 1985 1.5 %; Australia accounts for 65% of the population
Language:
English, French (French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna,
Vanuatu); a wide range of indigenous Aboriginal, Maori, Melanesian,
Micronesian, and Polynesian languages and dialects (over 700 in
Papua New Guinea) are spoken
Religion:
Predominantly Christian; 30% of the people of Tonga adhere to the Free
Wesleyan Church; 70% of the people of Tokelau adhere to the Congregational
Church; French overseas territories are largely Roman Catholic
History:
There is a mixed diversity of race, language, and culture. The islands
of Melanesia, dominated by New Guinea, were the first to be settled.
Human prehistory may stretch back some 40,000 years in New Guinea,
and recent archaeology in the highlands suggests that agriculture
was practised there as long as 9,000 years ago. But the settlement
of the remainder of the Pacific occurred only during the last
6,000 years, and in Polynesia as recently as 2,000 years ago.
Food crops (notably yam, taro, banana, and coconut) and domestic
animals (pig, dog, chicken) are all of Southeast Asian origin,
with the exception of the sweet potato (important in the New Guinea
highlands and Polynesia), which was probably introduced into the
Pacific from America.
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